


Boy in the Window

by huntoncollins



Category: Original Work
Genre: 1990s, Best Friends, Character Death, Coming of Age, Creepy, Crime Fiction, First Love, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Major life changes, Male-Female Friendship, Middle School, Murder Mystery, Mute Boy, Mysterious Boy - Freeform, Small Towns, boy next door, middle school kids getting way in over their heads
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-23
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-10 09:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14734455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/huntoncollins/pseuds/huntoncollins
Summary: A mysterious boy. A brutal murder.Thirteen year old Samantha is forced to move to a creepy small town in Arkansas. She just wants to go home... But she'll try to keep her family happy, while hiding her own misery.However Benton Falls has a history of brutal deaths, and Samantha unwittingly barrels right into the next one. Amidst new friendships and blossoming love, one of Samantha's new classmates is brutally murdered.Part coming-of-age story and part dark crime mystery, Boy in the Window strikes the difficult balance between sweet and terrifying.Can Samantha find out what happened to the boy in the window? Or will she be murdered herself?





	1. Arrival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought about tagging this as M/F. There's a little bit of first love in here. But it's ultimately a friendship story. (And a murder mystery.)

She wanted to go back home. Samantha’s fingers tightly gripped her backpack. Two more bags sat at her feet, full of clothes. The car felt overstuffed, claustrophobic. Glancing at her aunt, she forced a smile.

The scenery outside the car had changed from flat plains to hilly pasture. Dense forest surrounded open rolling fields with grazing livestock. They’d left Missouri, and were now deep in rural Arkansas. Barbed wire lined the highway, fencing in cattle, horses, even deer. The hilly terrain gradually became more hazardous. Roads twisted around blind curves, cut into the side of the old worn-down mountains, taking the car up steep climbs, then descending like a roller coaster.

“I’m sorry,” Aunt Anne said again, breaking the silence that settled between them.

“It’s okay,” Sam reassured her again. “I understand. I can handle myself.”

“You can.” Her aunt nodded, eyes forward as they drove around another curve. Whatever was ahead could not be seen. Not until it was directly in front of them. “You’re a good girl. You’ve made this easy for all of us.” She said. “I’m so sorry, Samantha. You should be able to just be a kid without all our worries.” Aunt Anne gripped the steering wheel.

“I’m not scared.” Samantha shrugged. The road dipped down, down, the car interior plunging into gray shadows. She wasn’t a ‘good girl’. When would they stop treating her like a little kid? They never told her everything. What if it wasn’t just the house? What if the worst was happening? She had to be there. She wouldn’t be in the way. She deserved to stay.

She looked to her aunt. Aunt Anne’s face was tense, her hands gripping the steering wheel. Aunt Anne wouldn’t even be going home after this. She’d drive back to Kansas City, to spend her days shuffling between the hotel, work, and the hospital, ragged.

“You won’t be lonely, will you?” Sam asked.

“Don’t you worry about me.” Her aunt glanced at her, smiling, eyes meeting as sunlight dotted through the canopy, coloring both of them. “We’ll talk every night. We’re both strong. That’s what Gordon girls are, right? We’re fighters.”

“Right.” Sam nodded, a tiny surge of strength warming her heart.

A break in the trees signaled their entrance into the little town of Benton Falls. The road led down a row of small, picturesque but rundown shops. A school sat at the end, with a playground and several small fields surrounding it, before gradually descending back into forest. The whole town was smaller than Sam’s entire neighborhood back home.

Aunt Anne had drawn a little map of the town during one of her phone conversations with Sam’s dad. Dubiously, she turned the car to the right.

The two of them used the little map on a piece of notebook paper that her aunt had drawn while taking instructions over the phone, before leaving the hotel in Kansas City. “I think we can turn down any of these…” Aunt Anne pointed to the right.

Perpendicular to the row of shops were houses. The drove down the first short street, counting house numbers, almost then turning down the next.

“This is Old Miner Road. We need Osage 1Road… There!” Her aunt pointed excitedly at an old street sign and turned down the row of houses. “Twelve thirty-nine.”

There were only the three lanes of houses in the small neighborhood, all of them looking like something from the fifties or earlier, small single-story buildings shaded with trees, and many without garages. Several of them were built of an ugly yellow stone, cut in long slabs.

“Thirty-seven, thirty-eight…” Aunt Anne said, leaning across Sam’s lap to squint at the numbers on the houses. “I think this is it.”

They parked on the curb, in front of a red brick house that looked too small. Sure enough, there were two cars there—a car in the driveway, and the tan Ford truck with a familiar rusted tailgate on the street. Aunt Anne parked behind it.

Movement in the curtains drew Sam’s gaze as she climbed out of their car. The front screen door squeaked loudly as it burst open.

“Samantha!” A little girl screamed in joy, pigtails bouncing as she ran towards them, her white and pink frilled socks staining green and brown through the grass.

Sam smiled and stretched her arms wide and hefted her up. Carolina had gotten heavier, and taller. “Hey Carolina! It’s so good to see you again. How are you?”

“You’re living with us, right?” Carolina asked in excitement.

“Yup,” Sam said. The house before her looked both warm and inviting. And quietly distasteful.

Carolina, ever overexcited and despite just being picked up, squirmed out of her arms, already yelling, “This is the best day ever! Mom! Dad! Mom!” Carolina pulled Sam by the hand towards the door. The new wife stepped out next, smiling and waving. Then finally, Samantha’s father emerged, drying his hands with a kitchen towel.

“Samantha, my baby girl.” He gathered her up in a big bear hug, squeezing tight. He still stood so tall above her. “It’s so good to have you here.”

“Hi, Daddy,” she said, hugging him back. Being with him again was the one thing she wasn’t scared of.

They migrated into the living room. Samantha tried to scope out what the bedroom arrangement might be in this small house, but only one door in hallway was open, leading to a bathroom. Her stomach tightened with anxiety, but she was quickly called to sit with the family.

“I hope it wasn’t too hard to find us. The town’s so small, you could just knock on every door if you needed,” Sam’s father joked.

“That would take a while… I can’t say the town is that small,” her aunt replied.

“Hah, made you admit it.”

Samantha could tell Aunt Anne was barely keeping herself from rolling her eyes, and she shared a grin with her father.

“And you,” he pointed at her. “What grade are you in now? Second? Third?”

“Dad!” She knew he was teasing her, but couldn’t help her outrage.

“You’ve grown so tall, but you can’t be that old… Just a few years ago you were pulling off your diapers and running around naked.”

“Dad,” she whined. “Stop it. I’m a teenager now.”

“Barely,” he pointed out.

“Five months,” she argued.

“Don’t worry Samantha,” her step-mother interrupted. “You’ll be in the seventh grade. There’s only eleven kids in your class.”

Samantha huffed, and sat back. She knew they had it right, her dad was just pulling her leg. But it was so infuriating.

“That’s good.” Aunt Anne said, and leaned back in her seat. “That’s one good thing about all this. The classes were twenty to thirty kids back in Kansas City. She’s never struggled,” this with a fond look down at Sam. “Well, except for cursive.” Samantha scowled. “-but it will never hurt to have a smaller class and more attention from the teacher. So, take advantage of that, okay?”

“Okay.” Samantha wasn’t sure how you ‘take advantage of that’ or why it would even matter. She liked answering questions during class, but it had caused some trouble from the other kids, especially two boys who had sat next to her in sixth grade and would made snide comments whenever she spoke up. It wasn’t the teachers that made her nervous. Part of her feared a smaller class, with kids who all knew each other.

“I’m glad school is taken care of. Now, I read some…interesting history when I looked up Benton Falls,” Aunt Anne said, picking up her sweet tea.

Sam’s dad and his new wife Emily met gazes, then quickly looked away to consider the glasses on the coffee table.

“Nothing recent,” her dad said. “It’s safer here, than up there.”

“There was something,” Emily said quietly.

“Not-” Sam’s dad started. Her aunt’s eyes went wide. “It was just a dumb kid, almost got himself drowned. Way, way younger than Samantha. And besides, there’s no crack addicts here, or gangs, or men grabbing little girls and hiding them under their garage. Benton Falls may have a past, but we haven’t had any murders in twenty years. How many people have died in KC just this year? A’hundred? Not to mention the floods3. It’s a damn shithole,” he muttered.

“Harrison.” Both women shushed him, with different levels of disapproval.

Aunt Anne shook her head, lips scowling. “It’s just for the year. I’ll get the place remodeled or sold, and then take her back.”

“If she wants to go back,” Sam’s father added, his tone hardened. He looked to Samantha, voice softening. “Sam baby, you can stay here for the rest of your life. It’s a good town to grow up in.” He looked to Aunt Anne, eyes thinning. “Maybe we need to make some more permanent plans. The way things are going, it might be best if we prepare-”

“We’ll reconsider at the end of the school year,” Aunt Anne cut in. “She’s lived with me and Violet for years and we’ll… We’ll just wait and see.”

Her aunt caught Sam’s gaze, and there was a promise in her eyes. She’d take Sam back. Sam would go home at the end of this. Samantha had been calm for weeks now, months, maybe longer. Aunt Anne had struggled so much, had cried when they saw what the house looked like, and Samantha had done everything to reassure her aunt, and her mother, that she was fine, everything was fine. They didn’t need to worry about her, because they had so much else to worry about. But now suddenly, sitting in this unfamiliar living room, on this unfamiliar couch, Samantha had to look down and hid her face, her nose burning, her vision a little blurry.

“You know, when a mom can’t take care of her kid anymore, the other parent usually gets custody,” Sam’s father said suddenly.

“Don’t-” Emily started.

“A responsible father wouldn’t drag this out in front of the kids,” Aunt Anne challenged back. Sam kept her eyes down on her hands.

“Stop, both of you,” Emily said. “We’ll just take this one day at a time. Your house was completely under water, right?” She asked Aunt Anne.

“Yes. The insurance-” her aunt stopped herself, “We’re waiting for-” Sam looked back up; leaned against her aunt. “It, it depends if it’s condemned or not. But we shouldn’t uproot Sam twice this year. Not unless the worst happens.” Aunt Anne crossed herself.

Emily flinched, though her expression looked surprised, not angry or disapproving.

“If the worst happens, of course we’ll get Sam back up there. I’ll be there myself,” her father said.

Aunt Anne’s face contorted like she smelled something sour. She’d often said unkind things about Sam’s father, how he failed others, left when things got tough, only cared about himself. Sam didn’t like hearing it. But Aunt Anne held her tongue now. “We’ll see,” her aunt said.

Awkwardly, the conversation flowed to the school and schedules. There’d been many fights like this over the years, since Sam’s mother first moved back in with her sister. Then the hospitals, the phone calls, the visits from her father. Her father wanting to take her to live with his new wife, his new daughter. Sam refusing.

She liked her own school, and her friends. She didn’t want to leave, but there wasn’t a choice. The school was closed. Everyone’s houses were ruined. She hadn’t seen her friends in weeks, and two had managed to get in touch to say that they were moving away, and they didn’t know when they’d be back.

At least her mother was okay.

Sam looked around. The adults were talking. Carolina was on the floor, two Barbies and a Skipper baking an invisible cake. Sam had imagined a house in Arkansas would have broken dishwashers in the front yard, with stained doilies and ugly crocheted blankets inside. There was no yarn or lace inside this house, but there was something very different, almost unfinished in the browns and reds of the furniture, something earthy and outdated. Darker than the seaside pinks and teals of Aunt Anne’s now ruined home.

Sam rose from the worn leather easy chair, glancing at the adults. No one seemed to mind, too caught up in their conversation. She walked towards the bookcase by the TV. It reached floor to ceiling, filled with VHS and cassette tapes. Back to the Future and Indiana Jones, Aliens and Aladdin. She glanced surreptitiously back at the adults; her aunt would never let her watch an R-rated movie, but her father might.

Movement caught her eye, and she looked out the window to see a squirrel climbing up a tree. It was grayer than the ones in Kansas City—and skinnier. The leaves of the tree were bigger than she’d seen before, in person at least, and multitudes of strange long pods 4hung heavy from it.

Beyond the tree she could see across the yard to the house next door, made of that ugly yellow stone. There was a boy in the window. Watching her.

The boy flinched. Then darted away.


	2. Fight

She's only gotten a glimpse of him: dark hair, glasses over anxious eyes, a middle schooler like her if she had to guess. He'd been peeking through the thin lacy white curtains of the tiny white house next door, watching her. Her!

Sam kept glancing through the living room window, hoping to see him again, but only the squirrel was there. Who was he? Why had he run away? Maybe he was super shy. Or hiding... Maybe he was kidnapped, held hostage in the country where no one would find him, waiting for his evil rich parents to pay the ransom, trying to get help - but he couldn't let his redneck kidnappers catch him making contact. (Rednecks kidnapped people, Samantha was pretty sure.) 

Or maybe he was a half wild country kid, who had never talked to a girl before.

Maybe he was a ghost.

“Samantha sweetie, what is so fascinating out there?” Aunt Anne broke through Sam’s thoughts, pausing in dinner.

Jolted out of her thoughts, Samantha suddenly very aware and embarrassed at how she had been near bouncing in her seat, twisting around hoping to see the mysterious boy again.

She glanced between the adults. Aunt Anne and her father were watching her, forks held in their hands. The new wife looked up briefly but turned back towards Carolina who was more interested in her crayons than dinner. 

Sam leaned in towards her aunt, and whispered, “I think I saw a ghost.”

Aunt Anne’s eyebrows rose, but her voice was more amused than alarmed when she whispered back, “Oh really? Where was it?”

“It was a boy. In the house next door.”

“I doubt he was a ghost then.” Aunt Anne spoke in her regular voice, completely betraying Samantha’s confidence. Now her dad knew!

“Ghosts? Where, in the woods?” He said, in between chewy bites of country fried steak. Samantha wasn’t sure it was real steak at all, given how tough it was, flattened and fried like mystery meat a school. Possibly a kangaroo liver or cat meat.

“The house next door,” Sam answered. 

“Oh, that’s just the old lady next door. She looks like death to me.”

“Harrison,” Emily scolded.

“No, it was a kid like me!”

“Huh.” Her father thought for a moment. Then turned to his new wife. “Does the old lady have any grandkids?”

“Mrs. Grayson,” Emily said evenly. “You mow her lawn.” 

“If I wanted to remember her name, I would.”

“God forbid you care about anyone else,” Aunt Anne muttered lowly. Samantha glanced anxiously between aunt and father.

Her father glared. “You wanna say that louder?”

“Harrison,” Emily pleaded.

“Shut up,” he spat. Samantha leaned back, withdrawing. To Aunt Anne he said, “I’m feeding you and giving you a place to sleep. You’d think you’d be able to be pleasant and grateful for one night, but you can’t even manage that, can you?”

“Maybe I should take Samantha back home with me,” Aunt Anne said evenly.

“Maybe I should get the courts involved, while you’re a homeless old hag.”

“Harrison, we don’t have the money-” His new wife pleaded.

“Shut up!” He snapped again.

“Samantha, come with me,” Aunt Anne interrupted, firmly grasping Sam around the upper arm, pulling her from her seat. Sam stumbled a bit over the chair, trying to get up so unexpectedly, but Aunt Anne’s hands guided her. 

Her father spat swears at Aunt Anne, standing up, while Emily watched with a helpless expression, and Carolina quieted.

“We’re going to the car,” Aunt Anne said.

“No, you aren’t.” Her father stood in between them and the door.

“I’m going to drive around the town and let everyone cool down,” Aunt Anne said firmly.

“Why don’t you go without my daughter,” he challenged. 

“You don’t deserve to be around her when you’re acting this way.”

“I’m not the bitch who started this-”

“Harrison! Just let them go, you’re too wound up-“ Emily pleaded. Carolina, still at the kitchen table was completely silent. 

Aunt Anne shouldered past Sam’s father and out the door, firm grip still on Sam’s arm. Her father tried to take Sam by the shoulders, but Samantha flinched away.

It was cool and dark outside, a navy cast over the houses and grass, an almost wet taste to the air. Samantha’s father didn’t follow them outside thankfully. His features were hidden, his form silhouetted and framed by the bright light spilling through the door.

Aunt Anne fumbled with her keys, searching her pockets frantically, then struggling to get the key in the door. Inside the car she shifted into gear and drove before Samantha finished buckling up. They rolled away, not going too fast because Aunt Anne would never drive at the speed limit, even when upset. 

They turned twice, going down another lane of scattered houses. They weren’t leaving the town. 

Aunt Anne finally relaxed, just a little, and Samantha could breathe easy again. Her nose hurt. She wasn’t crying, and she wouldn’t, she wouldn’t cry. Sam bit her lip, and looked from her aunt to ugly mismatched houses outside, no home in anyway coordinated with the neighborhood. There were brightly lit windows shining from some. A firepit sparked in the lawn of one home with no driveway, people sitting around it in lawn chairs drinking beer. They watched Aunt Anne’s car as it rolled by.

“It was my fault,” Aunt Anne said as they turned down the next lane. “I shouldn’t have said that. It was rude, and I know what that man gets like. I just… Lord forgive me, I hate him so much!” 

Samantha picked at a piece of wood panel on the door that had started peeling. Aunt Anne would yell at her if she noticed. 

“I’m sorry,” Aunt Anne said. “This isn’t about me. I shouldn’t be picking fights right now. But why does did he have to blow it out of proportion like that? He never should have started swearing, and the way he treats that poor woman… God help me.”

He had yelled at Mom too. Told her to shut up.

“Do you want to go back? Back home.” Aunt Anne asked hopefully.

“I wanna go back to our house,” Samantha muttered. “And my school.” But both were impossible.

Aunt Anne wilted. “Me too. I don’t even know if I can buy a new place, or how I’m going to afford next month, or…” She trailed off bleakly. She pulled over to the curb and parked the car.

Aunt Anne cried. It wasn’t the first time, and it wouldn’t be the last. Samantha unbuckled her seatbelt, and reached out to lean against her aunt, let the woman drag her across the center console, into her lap, where they held each other tightly.

“I’m sorry,” Aunt Anne sobbed. “I’m so sorry. I’m not abandoning you. I want to keep you with me, but I’m just not sure what’s going to happen right now. I hate that man, and I hate the insurance company, and I hate the floods. God forgive me.” 

“I wanna go back home,” Samantha cried quietly, tears staining her cheeks, burying her face against her aunt’s chest. “I want Mama back. I don’t wanna stay here, I wanna go home.”

They cried themselves out, hugging tightly in the dark. Samantha stayed in her aunt’s arms as long as she could, but she was slipping out of her lap little bit by little bit, the two of them having to re-adjust constantly to maintain the hold. Samantha was just too big. She probably weighted a ton to her aunt. It had been years since Aunt Anne could pick her up, Samantha was to her shoulders now. It had been years since they hugged like this, at least until the rains came. This wasn’t the first time they had hugged and sobbed together this year.

Aunt Anne wiped Samantha’s eyes, soothed her hair down. “We should get back. Are you okay?”

Samantha nodded, and reluctantly lifted her head from her Aunt’s cotton shirt. “I’m fine.” She pulled herself back to her seat. 

Aunt Anne took another minute to compose herself. Then, with a squeeze to Samantha’s hand, she started up the car. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _"The 1993 midwest flood was one of the most significant and damaging natural disasters ever to hit the United States. […] Tens of thousands of people were evacuated, some never to return to their homes. At least 10,000 homes were totally destroyed, hundreds of towns were impacted with at least 75 towns totally and completely under flood waters. At least 15 million acres of farmland were inundated, some of which may not be useable for years to come."_
> 
> Larson, Lee W. “Destructive Water: Water-Caused Natural Disasters - Their Abatement and Control.” The Great USA Flood of 1993, US Dept of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, Northwest River Forecast Center (NWRFC), 24-26 June 1996, www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/floods/papers/oh_2/great.htm. Presented at IAHS Conference in Anaheim, California.


	3. Bedroom

Back at the house Sam’s father glowered at Aunt Anne when they walked back in but held his tongue.

“It’s getting late,” Aunt Anne deterred any arguments. “We need to call my sister before it gets any later.”

Samantha was itching to talk to her mother but was also itching for something else. “Can I go to the bathroom first?”

“Of course,” Emily replied. “It’s down the hallway. Here.”

Carolina’s mother walked Sam down the hall and pushed open a door on the right. The bathroom had a yellow marble counter top and dark mahogany cabinets. After closing the door Samantha heard raised voices. Another fight breaking out between her father and Aunt Anne. She knew why Aunt Anne hated her Dad; he’d left her mother. But why did her father hate Aunt Anne? She hadn’t done anything wrong. Except disliking him. Aunt Anne tried to get along, she didn’t yell or shout or make threats the way he did. But she had insulted him at dinner. Maybe it wasn’t her dad’s fault... Still, all the excitement to see her father again, the only good thing in this whole ordeal, was soured. Samantha wasn’t sure she wanted to live with him anymore.

No tears came though; she was already cried out. The arguing had gotten quieter. After leaving the bathroom she looked down the hallway. There were only two bedrooms. One had a large bed. Her father’s clothes filled half the closet, and women’s clothes -Emily’s- filled the other half. The second bedroom had a pink twin bed, and dozens of Barbie dolls piled into an open toy chest. A giant discombobulated Barbie head sat on the floor, plastic mouth smiling. There was a huge collection of Polly Pockets on a child-sized vanity. At least two dozen pastel lockets covered the pink table top. Samantha saw no second bed.

There was a third room, with the door closed. Excited, Sam turned the yellow brass doorknob slowly, wincing as it squeaked. When no one from the dining room called or looked down the hallway, she pushed the door open. It stopped not even halfway open.

The room was piled high with magazines, books, old pre-school toys, and furniture. It smelled like dust and faintly of decaying food. The door couldn’t open further because there were cardboard boxes behind it, piled high. The hunter green window curtains were pulled closed.

“That’s mom’s room,” Carolina said. Samantha jumped.

“Shh,” she panicked. But again, no one called from the dining room or looked down the hallway. Only Carolina was there. Feeling a little more at ease relaxed Samantha said, “But your mom sleeps with Dad.” Emily didn’t need a separate bedroom. There was a bed in this room filled with junk, but boxes and stacks of newspapers were piled on top.

“It’s mom’s room,” Carolina repeated, happy to seem to know the answer. “It’s like an extra big closet, and it helps her clean.”

“Oh,” Samantha said dimly, gazing at the junk room. “What does Dad think?” Though her memory was weak, her father had been frustrated at her own mother’s struggle to clean. Her mother’s weakness first starting to show during household chores and excursions.

The little girl looked away and shrugged, like she didn’t want to say something.

“Where am I going to sleep?” A bit of upset was crawling back up her throat.

The little girl perked right up. “With me!” She grabbed Samantha by the hand and pulled the older girl towards the pink bedroom. She got on her hands and knees, looking under the bed. “It’s down here!”

“Under the bed?” And it was. There was a trundle mattress. Sam was able to pull it out from under the bed, with some faux help from Carolina. The sheets were purple. They smelled fresh and clean. Purple wasn’t Sam’s favorite color anymore, it hadn’t been since second grade. But they were very pretty, with white stripped trim. And they were brand new, pristine with no strains or lose threads, free of wrinkles. Samantha was used to thrift store clothing, since her mother stopped working.

“It’s gonna be like a slumber party!” Carolina squealed, and hugged Sam around the waist.

“Carolina! Samantha?” Called the new wife, before peaking at them through the doorway. “You found your bed.”

“We’re gonna have a slumber party,” Carolina sang again, jumping up and down on the trundle bed. “-gonna have a slumber party-”

“Do I-” get my own room? Samantha wanted to say, but the words froze in her throat.

“It’s getting close to bedtime and we still have things to do,” Emily scolded. “Samantha, would you please go to your aunt? She wants to call your mother. I’ll get Carolina ready for bed.”

It was a little after 8:30 PM when Sam and Aunt Anne made the phone call to the hospital in Kansas City. Her aunt watched the bright red time on the VHS player, lips pressed together in discontent. The long, coiled telephone cable trailed between the kitchen wall and the dining table where they sat.

“Hello?” Aunt Anne startled, after many rings. “Yes, I’m asking for Room 332. Violet Gordon. Yes. Yes, we’re family.” Another pause, the other person’s voice brisk. “Understood. Thank you.”

Another small eternity, then a more familiar, slower voice asked, _‘Anne?’_ through the phone. Aunt Anne smiled. “Violet.”

Sam was sure the next words, though faint, were, _‘Did you make it there safely?’_

“Yes. It wasn’t too long a drive. Half a day? The last part was confusing, once we left the interstate. Lots of little country roads.”

_‘And Sam?’_

Aunt Anne smiled at Samantha. “She’s here. She’s practically bouncing in her seat.”

Sam froze and sat still still still. On her best behavior, trying to patiently wait even though she wanted the phone right now now now.

_‘What took so long! I’ve been waiting all afternoon for a call.’_

“We had dinner! We still need to unpack, and I need to find a spot to sleep. I’m not sure where we’re setting up Samantha yet.” At this, Samantha’s excitement dulled. Would Aunt Anne help? Could she make the new wife give her a bedroom?

_‘Is she okay?’_

“She sure is. Handling it better than I am.”

_‘Can I talk to her?’_

“Yes,” Aunt Anne said. “But not too long. We only have half an hour and I want to talk to you too.”

_‘I was hoping you’d call sooner. If I’m not too loud, the nurses might let me talk longer. What about Harrison? Is this okay? Is this too expensive?’_

“Pfft, like I care. Harry Harlot can pay a couple extra dollars.” Then finally, finally Aunt Anne handed the phone to Samantha.

Thrilled, happy for the first time in an hour, Sam took the receiver and asked, “Mom?”

Her mother had worried about them all day, and scolded Samantha too for not calling sooner. She sounded weak and tired; it hadn’t been a good day. Aunt Anne had kept her voice calm and soothing, but paced in front of the phone.

Samantha talked about the mismatched houses, the spooky forest surrounding the town, how tiny it was, and the many animals they’d seen on their drive. “I thought I saw a big black cat on the edge of the trees, but Aunt Anne says it had to have been was a mountain lion, and those are blond.”

 _‘Maybe it was just in the shadows. You know, that reminds me…’_ Her mother told the story of seeing a mama cougar and her cubs on the way up to Sturgis. _‘They were about half her size, with these thick stocky legs, and pale spots. I remember they didn’t look like kittens. They looked like mini-adults, except for their big fat adorable paws. They were around a... dead deer.’_

Samantha tried to imagine what her mother was remembering. Big mountain lion cubs munching on a deer, tearing flesh, blood on their maws. Did cubs help with the hunting? _‘It was before you were born. Your father had this Harley he’d bought, he was so proud of it. We didn’t have much extra cash, so he gave me his helmet and drove without one himself. Don’t you ever do that, okay? Always wear a helmet. Don’t even get on a bike, not until you’re thirty. I know three guys who died on them.’_

“Where were the cubs at, Mom?”

_‘Hmm… We weren’t in South Dakota yet. So it must have been Nebraska. Oh, that’s right! I remember being worried, because a mountain lion had killed someone in a park.’_

“You think you saw a man-killer?” Sam asked incredulously.

_‘What? No, I was worried for the babies! The police were hunting for it, and they might have killed them!’_

“Oh.”

Her mother sighed. After the quick burst of energy and enthusiasm she’d been even more tired. Samantha gave the phone Aunt Anne shortly after.

* * *

Come to find, Aunt Anne would be sleeping on the sofa during the weekend. “Sorry, we don’t have any more beds,” Sam’s Dad said with a tight smile, while his new wife looked away.

A drawer in Carolina’s dresser had been emptied out for Sam. Not quite half of the little girl’s closet was open. Plenty of wire hangers waited for Sam’s “dresses” (as her father said). The little bedroom was packed, with both Aunt Anne and Emily hanging up Sam’s clothes in some sort of fight for female housekeeping dominance. Meanwhile Sam moved socks from her suitcase to the little bottom drawer. Carolina pranced around them all.

Sleep didn’t come easily that night. The scent of laundry soap was too strong on her pillow. She’d never noticed the cars passing by at night in their Kansas City neighborhood. But here in Arkansas the night was both too quiet and too wild. Strange sounds came from outside, odd rustling and scratches that might have been snakes, or wolves, or cougars. Were there bears in Arkansas? Could they get in? Were they sniffing at Carolina’s window right now, scratching to get inside? Samantha cried again that night, silently, biting her fingers and trying to stay quiet. Terrified of what could be out there, scared of how alone she felt, soon to be abandoned. She didn’t know this place. She wasn’t her daddy’s little girl. She might never see her mother again. She had no place of her own, sleeping on the floor like a dog. Above her, the new daughter snored, unafraid.


End file.
